Leaves on the Wind
by ijnt
Summary: An AU eleven-shot told from the point of view of nine different characters, each in a different place than they were in canon. An exploration of the similarities and differences between a number of major characters.
1. Nagato

**I'm going to try and write this for an hour a day — in a way, think of it like a nine-shot written over nine days, I guess. It's not really intended to be a story as much as it is an extrapolation of an AU world that explores some butterflies. So here goes.**

* * *

A girl and her master walked calmly east through the forests of Fire Country.

The day was oppressively muggy, and even if it wasn't the hottest day of the year, the humidity was perfectly capable of making it unpleasant to be outside. The dirt road ahead vibrated with heat haze, and the trees were still in the late afternoon light, lacking any kind of breeze.

"Ahhh, Sensei! Where are we going!?" Well, the master walked calmly at least.

"I'm not sure yet, Anko," her master replied tiredly.

"But! How do you know where to do if you don't know where we're going?"

"Anko."

"I mean, what if you go the wrong way? And even, how do you get there? You're not making any sense, sensei. Aren't you supposed to be some kind of legendary ninja! I'm not impressed, you—"

"Anko, shut up."

The girl made an aggravated noise and mumbled something under her breath.

The man sighed. He wasn't good with kids, especially the girl ones. Jutsu and ninja skills he could handle fine, but pre-teen girls? No way. His sensei, the famous Sandaime Hokage, had treated them all like small adults. Was that how he was supposed to treat this one? Or maybe like a tiny little copy of his female team member? He shuddered. No, probably not.

Not for the first time, he regretted accepting the brat. But both his legendary sensei and his equally legendary team members had insisted, and he'd had no legitimate reason that he _couldn't_ take a student, so here he was. Regretting it.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Was she sulking? She was! Damn it all.

"Did you say something?"

She glared, mulishly.

"I can't read your mind, you know. Well, I probably could get that Yamanaka technique that Inoichi showed me to work, but I've been told it's horribly invasive, and really, I'm not sure it would be the best start to our teacher-student relationship. So, Anko — Anko! What's the problem?"

Anko just shrugged, and looked away. "I just — you haven't taught me _anything_ , sensei. I'll be good if you teach me something, I swear!"

He considered the deal. It was a good one, and maybe channeling that energy into something productive might finally get him an hour or so of silence. He'd only had the girl for about thirty-six hours, and she'd slept for eight of those. The other twenty-eight had been filled with _noise_.

"Fine," he agreed.

"Yaaaaaaay!" Anko cheered, instantly happy again.

"Alright. Hmmm, it'll have to be something you can do while walking. Do you know the leaf balancing exercise?"

She rolled her eyes. "Of course, sensei! That's like...baby stuff. I'm top of the class! Teach me something _awesome_."

"Hmmm," he eyed her, speculatively. "Well, do you know your elemental affinity?"

"No."

How was he supposed to teach her techniques if she didn't know her affinity? Wasn't that something that students should know if they wanted to be taught techniques? It wasn't like he had any chakra paper on him. This was probably one of those things that his teammate would have been better at. Hadn't he taught those brats for a while back in Ame?

But he could probably just teach her a fire jutsu. A small one, maybe. She was from the Land of Fire, right? She probably had a fire affinity, or at least some use for it. Or would it be better to teach her wind? Something like wind might be useful to know in the future, and he planned to teach her all of the techniques eventually, right?

Eh, stick with fire.

"Alright, Anko, I'll show you a fire jutsu anyway. Even if you don't have a fire affinity, it'll still be useful, it'll just be harder to master. But you're supposed to be a genius, right?"

"You got it! I won't give up till I can do it, sensei!"

"Fine. Now pay attention, I'm only going to show you this once."

He stopped, and his hands spun into patterns as he gathered chakra. He purposefully slowed them down so she could follow along.

Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger.

He _spat_.

The oil ignited as soon as it left his mouth, and crashed into a tree on the side of the road.

" _Cool_ ," Anko breathed. "I'm going to learn how to do that."

"Don't let me catch you aiming it at the road," he cautioned. "I don't want to hear that you've hit some poor old woman practicing. Aim for the trees, only. And you're not to use it in a fight until I've seen it and approved of it. No student of mine is going to go into battle half-cocked."

"Of course, sensei!" She stepped away a few paces, towards the treeline. Good.

She started flashing through signs, and he turned his attention back towards the road. Where were they going? He hadn't been lying when he said before he wasn't sure, but he had to start somewhere. He intended to train Anko on the way, of course, but he hadn't forgotten his self-appointed mission. There was supposed to a clan somewhere up north with the ability to absorb natural energy, so he could take his student to check them out. That was probably his best bet, although the rumors coming out of the Village Hidden in the Waterfall were interesting, and they were nominally an ally of the Leaf, so they could start there. And Cloud's sage tools — but it was probably best to stay away from Cloud for a bit, what with all the tensions from the last war still high. Maybe in a year or two.

His concentration was broken when Anko started coughing violently, her hands on her knees. He went over to her and hit her on the back a few times, and she coughed up a bit of smoke.

"Well, that wasn't terrible," he admitted. "You got something, at least. Maybe you do have a fire affinity, after all."

She put up he hands to try again, but he stopped her. "Take five minutes to recover your breath, and have some water. It'll be that much harder to master it if you're not breathing deeply."

"Fine," she agreed, with all the dignity of a daimyō granting a boon to a particularly unruly subject. "You still haven't told me where we're going."

"Well, that's because I haven't decided where to start."

"Start what?" she looked at him, curiously. "Why are we leaving the village, anyway? It can't just be for a training trip, after all. You only agreed to take me two days ago, and the Hokage said you were planning on leaving for a while."

He stopped walking, and stared back. The evening sun started to dip low in the sky, painting the horizon with oranges, reds, and pinks.

"I'm looking for something."

"Huh? What?" Anko asked.

And Uzumaki Nagato answered, "The power to change the world."

* * *

 **So this is an AU with the Ame Orphans, the Sannin, and Team 7 swapped into different places. I'm going to try and keep the characterization more or less accurate, with the circumstances of the teams coming together different, which will lead canon to different places. The fact is that they're all very different people, and with different circumstances — a team 7 that had to band together to survive is going to look very different from a Team 7 that grew up in peacetime Konoha, after all.**

 **I'm also hoping that this section raised a lot of questions, too, which will ideally be answered in the next snippets.**

 **I'm also not sure if I sold the bait-and-switch too hard, either, because I sort of feel like I made Nagato too much like Orochimaru. I just sort of see him as eminently competent, which I'm sort of influenced by _House of the Holy_ , I'll admit.**

 **So, since I've been informed that it wasn't clear to some people, in the interest of clarification, the AU switch is this:**

 **Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura take the places of Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato.**  
 **Yahiko, Konan, and Nagato take the places of Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru.**  
 **and Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru take the places of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura.**


	2. Naruto

**Part 2**

* * *

A boy stood in the rain, watching a legend's birthing cries, and wondered when it was that he became the one that people entrusted with their dreams.

For his whole life, he'd had nothing. Another peniless orphan, starving on the streets of Ame. Ame ate people kids like that by the hundreds — they were killed in the crossfire of the Second World War, or they starved, unable to feed themselves. On the streets, no one wept for them, except the sky. When he was younger, he'd thought that when it rained, God was crying.

It never stopped raining in the country of Ame.

That probably summed the place up pretty well, actually.

To different places in the Shinobi countries, rain meant different things. Suna welcomed the rain, when and if it came through the desert. To them, it was like the gift to life. Kiri, too, thrived in the rain — their jutsu were empowered the more water surrounded them. Konoha's rain meant the that the weather was growing warmer, and that the growing season had become.

To Ame, the rain was just another hand around its neck, strangling the people inch by inch.

The three foreign shinobi — one orange-haired, one red-haired, and one-blue haired, stood bent, but not broken. The blue-haired woman leaned slightly against her orange-haired teammate, but they, unlike so many of their fellows, weren't dead yet. If the rain was one hand, the forces of the Five Great Nations were the other.

Across the field, a man stood atop a salamander, everything about him screaming his challenge to the world.

 _You cannot break me, not your armies, not your heroes, not your assassins in the night. I am Hanzō, and I will endure._

Hanzō the Salamander was the knee that held the people of Ame down in the muck while the rain and the foreign invaders strangled it. He propped himself and his legend up on his people.

"It is impressive that you have survived so far, Leaf nin. But I cannot allow you to live any longer." He raised his hands, and the rain _twisted.  
_  
An enormous tornado of water burst into existence from the downpour, originating from the man on the giant summon. It whirled and thrashed towards the foreign shinobi, threatening to rip them apart.

The blue haired woman danced away from the orange-haired man, all infirmity forgotten. Apparently from nowhere, she produced a number of white, thin projectiles and threw them towards Hanzō. Her companion dashed forward, hands moving too fast to follow. He thrust his hands into the ground, and from the saturated earth, a tidal wave rose, thin and tall, that crashed into the tornado of water, dispersing them both. The third ninja, the red-haired man, ripped an enormous chunk of rock from the ground and hurled it at their enemy with an enormous heave, almost too fast to follow.

The salamander's tail lashed out, and dashed aside the boulder, while the man himself spat out a gust of wind that knocked away all of the projectiles with contemptuous ease.

"I am Hanzō, the Salamander! And I will not be destroyed by the likes of you!" he shouted. But his opponents, too, would not be broken trivially either.

They clashed again, and in a whirl of shining chakra and booming jutsu, the battle resumed.

For his whole life, Naruto had been a boy trying to survive. He'd been alone for the first part of it, and even when he'd found friends — wonderful, kind friends who had looked out for him, even if they had warned him that they couldn't take freeloaders, and that he would have to do his share of the work.

Even when there was three of them, they'd still been worried about surviving. Even when they stole from the shopkeepers, and they'd amassed enough food that they didn't have to worry about where their next meal was coming from, they hadn't allowed themselves to dream, not like now. They hadn't even been worried about what would happen once the war was over, or how to make the country better, or what they were going to do for a job.

But here and now, they allowed themselves to dream - of a world where there was no war, no more orphans who had to struggle to survive, whose whole existence was distilled down into making sure they woke up the next morning. Here and now, they were tired of _surviving._ Here and now, this was their chance to change their fate. Their chance to be more than just starving orphans in the rain.

Sakura stood next to him, her pretty pink hair bleached almost white in the rain and the half-light, pale green eyes wide at the spectacle. He reached out and grasped her trembling wrist. She turned, and gave him a brief but grateful smile, and the trembling stopped. Sakura, who at first glance seemed so quiet, demure and pretty — something that nearly every shopkeeper in the town where they'd lived together had found out was untrue, to their detriment, but held within herself a core of steel and fire. Sakura, who'd stared the horrors of their reality in the face and refused to flinch back from them.

Sasuke stood to his to his other side, all pale and quiet and brooding. He wasn't happy — he wasn't ever happy — but tonight, he was unhappier than usual. Out of all of them, Sasuke was the one who hated the Konoha ninja the most — he was the one who had the most reason to. Sasuke was angry, he was vengeful, and he'd watched the foreigners murder his entire family. He'd avenged himself then and there, but Sasuke would be pleased if all of them would die.

Sasuke, who hated Konoha more than he hated the rain. Sasuke, who was willing to follow Naruto right into the arms of the Leaf ninja, because _he believed in Naruto. In Naruto_ , the idiot, the kid who was the slowest to get the joke every time and who had to work for everything he had. Naruto turned to Sasuke, and looked under that veritable mop of ink-black hair, into his lilac eyes, ringed with concentric circles. He wasn't happy, but he was willing. And that was enough.

He didn't know when he got this lucky, and he didn't know when he'd stopped believing he was worthless. But he had, and he wanted, desperately, to be the kind of person that deserved the faith that his friends had placed him him.

The battle was winding down now, and even the rain seemed to taper off a bit. The blue-haired woman was favoring her side even more openly now, and the red-haired man's incomprehensible speed seemed to have faltered a bit, too. The orange-haired man still stood tall, as the leader, as he faced down Hanzō, who had also not escaped unscathed - he had a bright-red gash on his arm, where he'd been cut by a wind ninjutsu.

"This battle, will in all likelihood, end in Konoha's victory. I...will spare your lives," Hanzō started.

"Mercy!?" the orange-haired man shouted. "From you? When so many of our comrades are dead?"

"The three of your are very strong. Even in this war, you've survived," Ame's leader continued, ignoring his opponent's words. "I, Hanzō of the Salamander, hereby honor you as 'the Sannin of Konoha.' Refer to yourselves as such, in exchange for your lives." With that, he turned away, and his summon lumbered off into the night.

The three shinobi, the Sannin, relaxed against each other. The rain was light, almost a drizzle.

"I don't know, Naruto." Sakura said. "Are you sure about this?"

He turned to look at her, and realized that she was eyeing Sasuke warily. He turned to his friend — both his friends, and grinned, a wide, blinding smile.

"Just trust me."

And three orphans stepped out to meet their destiny.

* * *

 **I liked this one, but I sort of struggled with the perspective. It's supposed to be third-person sort of omniscient, and therefore it's sort of not-quite-Naruto's point of view, but I felt like that also inhibited his point of view, so I sort of feel like it could be more Naruto-y. If that makes any sense.**

 **Still, tomorrow we'll likely have Jiraiya. Or Orochimaru. Still not sure yet.**


	3. Tsunade

**Part 3**

* * *

A girl walked along the road, trailing after the client and the idiots.

They were her teammates, fine. But that didn't make them any less idiotic.

Even her sensei, who was supposed to be some kind of great ninja, was a lazy weirdo! It was like she was surrounded by idiots, all the time! Maybe it was a boy thing? But Nawaki wasn't an idiot, even if he was still at the academy. Maybe when boys became ninja they became idiots? That actually made a lot of sense, and explained a bunch of things. But then, she thought about that idiot that her brother ran around with all the time, Konohamaru. He was definitely an idiot, so that disproved the theory.

Eh, boys were just idiots, and Nawaki was the lucky exception. Actually, he ran around with Konohamaru all the time.

Scratch that, boys were all idiots.

Especially her stupid teammates.

Orochimaru was a jerk — she wasn't bossy! Jiraiya was just lazy!

And Jiraiya was just...Jiraiya. He was literally his own category of idiot. He was beyond obnoxious, always asking her out all the time and not seeing that she didn't want anything to do with him. And Orochimaru! He was just so annoyingly cool and good at everything and didn't react at all to _anything_! And then he had to go and call her names, which ruined all of his appeal.

"Maa, Tsunade, are you watching the road? There could be bandits appearing at any point, and it would be a real shame if our poor client were to be attacked and you weren't paying attention," Her sensei piped up from the top of the client's wagon, nose buried in that stupid book. At least it wasn't porn. Tsunade would have had to punch him if he wandered around reading porn all day.

Speaking of idiots...her sensei was the worst one of all! She was totally paying attention, and it wasn't like the bandits were going to attack. They weren't _ninja_ , and she was, and she'd be able to hear them coming a mile off! This was her first C-rank, and as the heir to the Senju, she just had to do well. It wasn't an option to fail. She would have seen those stupid bandits coming a mile off, she didn't need stupid sensei. But he was looking at her lazily now, expecting an answer. He wasn't even paying attention to the client, either!

Still, this wasn't a battle she could win.

"Alright, sensei," she said. She didn't whine, because Senju didn't whine.

"You too, Jiraiya. Not everything is a competition, you know. The road of life has many twists and turns, and it's not well-suited for a race."

"Sensei! What does that even mean!?" Jiraiya complained. "The road of life isn't _real_ , it's just part of your silly excuses for being late all the time!"

"Ahh, Jiraiya, one day, when you're all grown up, one day you'll look back at all this and laugh, and then you'll come to me and you'll say, 'Kakashi-sensei, you were the best teacher ever. I'm so glad you made us think when we were younger. All of my successes go back to my good sensei's teachings.' And I'll just pat you on the head and say, 'I'm glad you've found your path on the road of life. I was worried you would get lost there, you know. It's not good to get lost on the road of life, or you'll end up late to your appointments.'"

Tsunade stared at their teacher, while Orochimaru just turned and raised one thin eyebrow. Jiraiya just looked befuddled for a half-second, before he reddened and shouted, "Ugh! Why do you have to be so weird!?"

"Maa, it's like my cute little students don't appreciate my genius or something."

Jiraiya just made a noise like a drowning cat. Tsunade shook her head. Idiots, the lot of them. At least Orochimaru was somewhat sensible, even if he was a weirdo that didn't understand human emotions.

Still, she didn't want to get in trouble again, so she let thoughts of her weirdo teammates float out of her head, and looked around as she followed the client's wagon, full of expensive textiles bound for the Land of Wind.

Minutes stretched into an easy silence, before she felt something tickle the edges of her awareness. It wasn't anything concrete, but it was — a feeling, if not a strong one, that something was off. The shadows of the sun cast by her great-grandfather's trees seemed longer than a few minutes ago, and the silence that was peaceful now seemed loaded, charged with tension.

Orochimaru's eyes were darting from side-to-side as he walked down the road, leading the procession, and her sensei seemed to tighten his casual slouch. Suddenly, it didn't seem so casual anymore, instead it seemed coiled with tension, ready to spring at a moment's notice.

Tsunade felt the goosebumps echo down her arms, and the blood rush through her veins. Something was about to happen. Even Jiraiya, who could charitably be called 'a bit slow' on the best of days had caught on, even if their civilian client hadn't.

The silence lay still for a moment, like someone had put the universe on pause.

Three men jumped out of the bushes, snarling and shouting. They were dirty, unkempt, and looked vaguely starving. One of them let fly with a kunai — weren't they bandits? If they were, where did that kunai come from — that flew straight and true towards their client, until Kakashi-sensei interspersed himself between them and took the hit in a spray of blood. He toppled off the wagon, going limp.

Now, Tsunade would have been the first to complain about her sensei, because he was sort of lazy and always late and he never really taught them anything — mostly he sat behind his book and grinned under his mask — you could tell when he grinned by the way his eye crinkled.

But — and Tsunade would only admit this under extreme duress — she would also vehemently defend him, as an eminently capable ninja. His antics during the bell test were evidence enough of that. And, he was one of the few adults she knew that didn't treat her any differently because of heritage, and her status as the heir to one of the village's founding clans.

So, when by all appearances, it looked like Kakashi was dead, she wasn't happy.

'Unhappy' was actually probably a gross understatement — Tsunade saw _red_.

She unthinkingly exploded into motion, diving forward with the sole intention of putting her fist through _that man_ 's skull. One of the other bandits foolishly interspersed himself between them, brandishing a rusty sword, but Tsunade didn't even bother to register him as more than an obstacle to be removed.

She _punched_ , and he went flying, until he hit a tree a few feet away and bounced off it with a sickening _crack._

Dimly, she noticed her teammates had engaged the other two bandits, and Orochimaru had dispatched his with a flurry of kunai and shuriken.

Jiraiya was fighting _that man_ , and although obviously outmatched — the bandit with the kunai was significantly more skilled than either of his opponents — he seemed to be holding his own with pure guts and determination, despite a broken nose. She stepped forward to end him, but froze when a miraculously alive Kakashi-sensei appeared behind the man and in a smooth move, snapped his neck.

"Wha...?" she floundered out.

"Sensei! You're alive!" Jiraiya shouted.

Even Orochimaru looked relieved, or at least as relieved as the stoic boy got.

"Maa, it's like my cute little students have no faith in me. Surely it's going to take more than a kunai to finish off your dear old sensei." And with that, all her worry vanished, and she wanted to punch him again.

"Grrr! You're such a jerk!"

"Now, Jiraiya, that's not very nice. Tsunade, that was a _very_ nice punch. Can you take a look at Jiraiya? Orochimaru, excellent kunai work, now, help me collect these bodies. We'll leave them for the ANBU to come get. I have to say, you all didn't do too badly for your first taste of real combat. I'm proud of all of you. You did really well, and none of your froze up. Good job, kids."

As Tsuande grabbed her medical kit, and went to patch up her idiot teammate's nose at the behest of their idiot sensei, while he helped their other stoic idiot teammate clean up the trash, she couldn't help but think that if she had to be stuck with idiots for teammates, she at least got stuck with these idiots.

Really, her idiots weren't so bad.


	4. Konan

**Part 4**

* * *

Two men sprinted through a forest, slipping through underbrush and dancing around trees.

They ran unheeded, putting as much distance between them and the village as they could, fearing it wouldn't be enough.

In the dead of night, it was that much harder to find them, but equally difficult to tell if pursuers were coming.

Still, they'd been running full speed for hours, and Aoi was tired. They could probably stop for a few minutes, at least. So he tapered off his run a bit, and let his sprint turn into more of a jog. His companion slowed with him, and soon enough they were standing a small glade, complete with small shrine, panting. It was quiet, filled only with the sound of their heavy breathing.

"Why'd...you stop?" the other man, Kuroi, another Kumo jōnin with expertise in stealth, asked.

"I can't...keep running like this," Aoi panted.

"Fine. But let's not...take to long. I've heard _things_ about people trying to infiltrate Konoha before. You don't want to let them catch you."

Aoi wasn't sure that wasn't just rumor — Konoha had good security, sure, but that was why they were diplomatic attaches instead of notable emissaries. The original plan would be Aoi acting alone, but it paid not to underestimate the enemy, particularly after Konoha had shown themselves surprisingly resilient to infiltration in the Third Shinobi World War. Nobody was supposed to notice if they disappeared into the night, and even though they had, it was already far too late. The revised plan had already worked. They would be free and clear and into the Land of Hot Water by dawn. A fifteen minute break wouldn't make a difference, in the grand scheme of things.

"Fine. We'll start again in a second. Ration bar?" he offered.

"Yeah, thanks."

"The package still secure?" Aoi asked, more to fill in the strange silence of the night than anything else. Weren't forests usually quiet?

"Yeah, she's good," Kuroi answered, as he unrolled the sack a bit, to reveal a small child, with ink-black hair and pupil-less milky lavender eyes. Still asleep. Good.

It was a shame to have to leave behind Tetsu, the third member of their team, but it would be worth it to acquire the Byakugan, and the girl's father had been frustratingly on-the-ball, which meant that one of their team had to stay behind to fight him. Tetsu was most certainly dead, or even worse, detained by Konoha's T&I, but since they had gotten away with their prize, one jōnin was ultimately irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

"We should get moving," Kuroi pressured.

"One more minute, let me finish my ration bar."

He stood for most of that minute, listening to the quiet rustling of the forest and savoring his terrible, bland meal. Ration bars really were terrible, but once he got back to the Village Hidden in the Clouds, he'd be hailed as a hero, and the Raikage himself would award him a feast. Well, maybe not quite that, but he had absolute faith he would be rewarded for his efforts.

"Do you hear that?"

"What? It's a forest, it's noisy at night. Nocturnal creatures and whatnot." Aoi was really getting tired of his companion's paranoia. They were _fine._

"No...it didn't sound like the forest. It sounded like..." he trailed off, looking towards the small shrine.

Aoi didn't see anything particularly special about it — it was a pretty typical forest shrine, more of an idol dedicated to the spirits of this place than an actual shrine. A raised lantern shrine, with some offerings of fruit and incense at the bottom, and a paper butterfly hanging off one corner.

There was nothing remarkable about it at all, which begged the question: why was Kuroi freaking out? His companion wasn't usually a man prone to flights of fancy, so if he was worried, there was likely something legitimately wrong.

"Kuroi?" he ventured.

"Something's here."

Then he heard it. A rustling, like someone was filing their tax forms.

Which was entirely out of place in a forest in the middle of the night in Northern Fire Country. He turned back to the paper butterfly, which was the only source of paper he remembered seeing — and he was pretty sure it was paper he was hearing, which was weird and out of place and therefore suspect.

Out of the forest all around them, a storm of similar butterflies appeared, congealing roughly in the center of the small glade.

Aoi inwardly panicked. Kuroi needed to run, because he had the girl. Which meant Aoi needed to stay behind. For Kumo. Staying behind for Kumo wasn't in the plan. For his subordinates, maybe, but not for him. Aoi now very dearly regretted not inisting on carrying their precious cargo.

Still, there was nothing to be done about now. Besides, he was skilled in fire release, and fire burnt paper, usually. Maybe this wasn't the end, yet. A storm of paper was a lot less daunting than facing off against an enraged Hyūga patriarch, anyway.

"Kuroi! Go!" he called.

The other Kumo shinobi took one long look at him, hesitating. Aoi nodded. forcefully, urging the other man away. If nothing else, the girl needed to be delivered to Kumo.

Kuroi ran.

The butterflies had unfolded and come together to form a human shape, which gained color and definition, although the woman standing there still seemed roughly formed of paper. She wore a Konoha hitai-ate, which was the only thing he bothered to take note of.

Aoi didn't hesitate — he struck decisively, forming a few handseals, before taking a deep breath and exhaling.

A dragon made of fire erupted from his mouth, and flapped its fiery wings, crashing straight into the woman, who dispersed into a storm of paper. Aoi could see the dragon burn through the paper, including most of what he thought composed the woman's body.

He caught his breath, glancing around the clearing. Was it over so quickly? He hadn't expected Konoha to catch them, sure, but if they had, he expected them to send more than one paper woman who went down to one fire jutsu. That was just pathetic.

Now that he thought of it like that — there! The sheets of paper returned, and he dodged out of the way of a few shaped like shuriken. Drawing his shortsword, he cut a few more, but there was more, and more, and more.

Pressed, he summoned up another fire jutsu — a number of smaller flame bullets, but the sheets of paper formed into butterflies and they nimbly flitted out of the way. It was futile — he could defeat them, but they just kept coming. He tried to strike with his sword again, but his arm was stuck to his side with paper.

He tried to run, but tripped, and found himself ensconced within a coffin of paper sheets, immobile. The woman reformed above him, and, paralyzed, he could do nothing but stare at her.

Taking in her features — the blue hair, complete with paper flower decoration, flat amber eyes, and labret piercing, he realized a chilling fact: he _recognized_ her. Konan of the Shikigami, one of the Sannin, the Leaf's three legendary prodigies. And, he realized hysterically, for a half-second he'd thought one fire dragon could _take_ her.

He was so _fucked_.

But still, he had one last hope — Kuroi had gotten away. If Kuroi had gotten away, Kumo could still acquire the Byakugan.

"You may have me, but my comrade has gotten away!" he crowed triumphantly. The woman, Konan, didn't react. She just stared at him for a second, impassively.

Then, she spoke. "Did you not wonder why I didn't pursue him?"

"I delayed you!" Aoi shouted, half-desperate. She was lying! She was here! Kuroi had gotten away, with the girl!

"My technique, the Dance of the Shikigami is famous for many things. One of the things that most people don't know about it is that once your consciousness is subsumed into a swarm of paper, it's very easy to exchange one swarm of paper for another."

Aoi's eyes widened in horrified realization.

Konan turned his paper coffin slightly, so that he could see another identical copy of her holding his team member in a similar coffin of paper. A milky-eyed little girl held the copy's hand. Aoi took the moment to notice that the woman's navel was pierced _four_ times, in a half-sane moment of horrified distraction.

"So you see," she said. "Why would I need to chase you when I can be in two places at once?"

"You bitch!" he shouted. "Kumo will have your head for this! We are part of a diplomatic mission, the Raikage won't let you get away with murdering—"

"Language," she chided, as a piece of paper flew into his mouth, gagging him. "There is a child present. But you see, that's another thing about my technique. Most people think that ninja techniques need to be lethal to be effective. But what makes mine frightening is that it's extremely non-lethal, when I want it to be. So you don't get to die, not yet. Instead, you'll have a nice long stay in Konoha's T&I department, and the Raikage will say nothing, because Konoha didn't murder his diplomats, Konoha legally detained his hired kidnappers."

As the paper continued to cover him, cutting off his vision and slowly suffocating him into unconsciousness, his last sight was the glint of terrible amusement in her eyes.

The last thing he heard, however, was that damnable woman's voice as she addressed the little Hyūga girl. "Now — Hinata, was it? What kind of paper animal would you like to ride back to your daddy?"

* * *

 **This took longer than usual because I kept getting interrupted, but I was relatively pleased with how it's turned out. I think I might do the second round of characters (Konan, Orochimaru, Sasuke) from the perspective of a different character looking in, like this. I'm not sure, though. We'll see.**

 **Tomorrow is definitely Orochimaru, though.**

 **Also, I'm thinking that the plot (there is a plot, sort of) will demand there to be a chapter ten, which will likely be Nagato again. That'll finish things off nicely, I hope.**


	5. Orochimaru

**Part 5**

* * *

A man stood in a darkened room, watching, waiting, for the person across from him to give any kind of visible reaction.

The boy, however, simply stared impassively back. He was a strange-looking young man, about the age of the man's daughter. But other than age, the children had almost nothing in common. His daughter was garrulous, bossy, and had an opinion about _everything_. He'd been trying to learn about him for almost an hour, and he hadn't heard a peep for the boy about anything at all, other than his name — Orochimaru.

If nothing else, it was worrying. Even if he hadn't known where the boy had come from, he would have been concerned — children were naturally talkative, or, failing that, expressive — and the lack of anything of the sort indicated at least a developmental problem. He'd face a severe problem with socialization in the future, and would very likely struggle immensely to understand and connect with his peers. It would lead to social issues later on in life — including a reduced capacity for empathy and an inability to form real, genuine attachments.

His appearance would only likely reinforce such things — Inoichi wasn't sure if pale, chalk-white skin and yellow, slitted eyes were natural — he'd seen some interesting stuff over the years, including that Kiri nin who was _blue_ , so he supposed it was possible. But natural or not, it certainly wasn't normal, and could interfere with the success of an attempt to socialize him.

A part of him was horrified, and another part of him noted cynically that the boy would grow up to be an excellent ninja — undoubtedly that was the logic behind whoever had emotionally stunted him.

And wasn't that the worst of it — that someone like this could be operating within Konoha, working outside of the Hokage's authority, and they had no idea.

The boy, Orochimaru, was still staring.

"And you can't tell me anything about the training you received?"

Orochimaru blinked once, and then replied, "Yes."

"Well, we can't do anything to stop the person that did this unless you give me _something_."

"Why would I want to stop them? A shinobi's place is to be a tool for his village."

Inoichi found his eyebrows rising. "Is that what you are? A tool for the village?"

"Yes."

"But you aren't a shinobi yet. The Hokage recognizes no authority in Konoha but his own."

"That does not change my purpose."

"Hmmm," Inoichi allowed. "But aren't we more than just shinobi? Shinobi is our profession, yes, but that does not mean it is all we are."

The boy's expression did not change. "A shinobi is all that I am allowed to be."

"But you don't want to be anything else?"

"No. Wants are irrelevant. A tool's desires do not matter."

Inoichi wasn't quite sure what to say to that. The kid sounded more like a hardened ANBU captain whose life was his work than an academy student.

"I see. Well, I believe that the Hokage would like you to attend the academy. How does that sound?" he asked instead.

Orochimaru didn't react outwardly. He asked, "Is that a mission from Hokage-sama?"

Inoichi said, "If it helps to consider it one, then yes."

"Then I will attend the academy and be an academy student to the best of my ability," the boy replied, with a perfectly straight face. Inoichi didn't think the kid knew how to make jokes, but if Ino had said that, he would have been sure that it was one hundred percent sarcasm.

What a world of difference.

"Good." Inoichi felt it best to reply to a perfectly literal statement with a perfectly literal response. "I'll be right back."

He walked out of the room, into a chamber adjacent to it that provided a view inside of the first room. A man was waiting for him there, with a face full of scars and a black bandanna covering his bald head.

Inoichi sighed, and rubbed his face. This was turning out to be a real clusterfuck.

"Well, he's loyal to Konoha, at least," Ibiki said.

"True, true," Inoichi agreed. "But that's not how an eight-year-old should act."

"But he's got the mindset now," his replacement said. "What's done is done. For better or worse, the kid thinks and talks like a ninja. There have been ninja younger than him before. But you're sure he won't talk?"

"No," Inoichi said. "Every time, he's just closed down."

Ibiki rubbed his bandanna, and the scars underneath. "But he's saying he can't." The other two turned to him, eyebrows raised. "Everything you said to him, he took literally. And his statements were just as straightforward. Maybe he means he literally _can't_ talk about it. That would at least explain why we didn't get anything out of the other one he was left with."

Inoichi resisted the urge to rub his face again. He'd just done that, and habits were bad things to form. "You know, just once, I wish that our mysterious guardian angel would actually stick around and legitimately process the idiots she catches."

"The Hokage's orders are to fudge the paperwork so they're all legitimate takedowns by Konoha's ANBU," Ibiki spoke in a monotone.

"I'm aware," he had to agree. "It still would be nice to know for sure."

"But what to do with the kid?" Ibiki asked.

"I threatened him with the academy," Inoichi said, slowly, half thinking out loud. "I wasn't exactly serious, but I'm wondering if it isn't a half-bad idea."

"You're kidding. The kid could take the genin exam right now, and probably pass it. In pure skill, he'd be wasted there," Ibiki objected.

"No, but hear me out. You're right, but what the kid needs is some normalcy. Throwing him into the life of a ninja isn't going to do him any favors in the long run. Hell, if I could I'd bring my daughter in here and see if she couldn't get anything out of him. But if he spends a couple years at the academy, maybe he'll make some friends, and become something more like a normal child.

"And yeah, he'll probably graduate early. But that's okay, because he'll get some time with kids his age. He doesn't need adults treating him like a kid, he needs kids treating him like a kid. I'm putting in a request to do just that. He's probably fine to live on his own, but he should be attending the academy."

"He'd have to be monitored, of course."

Inoichi nodded along. Maybe he'd mention the boy to Ino, say that he'd heard the kid was interesting. If nothing else, innocently sparking Ino's interest would get the kid talking. He'd yet to meet someone who could stoically ignore his daughter.

"Inoichi," Ibiki said. "You're sure about this." It was a statement, not a question. He sighed. "Fine. I'll send someone to report to the Hokage. He always likes to hear about captures like this anyway."

"I am sure," he agreed. He turned to look at the room, where an eight-year-old was staring straight ahead, almost mechanically. "Every kid deserves a chance. Konoha needs to look after its own more than it needs another soldier."


	6. Sasuke

**Part 6**

* * *

A man stood on the edge of a cliff, quietly savoring the sweet taste of success.

Surrounded on all sides by his loyal ROOT subordinates, Shimura Danzō watched impassively as Hanzō of the Salamander, ruler of the Village Hidden in the Rain, sprung the carefully planned trap on those who called themselves Akatsuki. The village's namesake rain poured down around them.

They were fools, allowing themselves to be caught in a trap like this. As if people in this shinobi world genuinely wanted _peace._ They thought they could talk about their problems, as if people would stop being the savages that they were only if someone talked at them for a while. The Akatsuki. _Dawn_. What a foolish notion.

Truth be told, although Danzō considered the Akatsuki and their leaders to be extremely foolish, he had nothing personal against them. They were simply inconvenient — Konoha would be best served by an Ame that was stable, and isolationist. Hanzō provided that. He was predictable — he had been the same since the dawn of the current age of great ninja villages and the end of the warring clans era, and he could be expected to stay the same.

These new revolutionaries, however, would very likely continue to be just that — revolutionary. They would undoubtedly disrupt the status quo, and could possible ally themselves with Iwa or Kumo to do that. Danzō refused to let that happen. Hanzō could be counted on to serve Konoha's interests. The Akatsuki might not. Therefore, they could not be allowed to oust Hanzō from power, or even broker a peace with him.

Which led them to this moment. Hanzō of the Salamander was not a man easily swayed, but he didn't get to where he was as the undisputed ruler of his country and feared across the Five Great Nations without a healthy dose of paranoia. He was in fact notoriously paranoid, and Danzō had capitalized on this fact, and urged him to strike before the Akatsuki could betray him at this 'peace talk.' Akatsuki probably wouldn't betray him, but that was beside the point. And besides, later, when the war was over and Hiruzen had to choose a successor, it wouldn't hurt to have more friends on his side. Hanzō was not a man without influence, after all.

The point was that Akatsuki might one day threaten Konoha's interest, so they needed to die. It was as simple as that. But cornering the revolutionaries had proved harder than he could imagine, and thus, the need for this trap. They had cornered the pink-haired girl while she was away from her friends, the other leaders, and now, she was tied up at Hanzō's feet.

And her friends, both dark-haired and blond, were surrounded on all sides by both Hanzō's men and Danzō's ROOT.

"You are a hindrance to my plans," Hanzō said, in his deep reverberating voice. "Naruto, as the leader, you must die here today. If you don't, she will." He gestured at the girl at his feet, triumph evident in his tone. He threw a single kunai at the ground between them. "You, with the black hair. Kill your friend, or the girl dies."

"Don't do it, Sasuke!" she shouted. "I'm not worth it! Just go! Get out of here!"

The blond turned to his friend, who was staring silently in the rain.

"...Kill me," he said.

"No," his friend replied, meeting his gaze, ringed lilac eyes flat. And wasn't that interesting, the Rinnegan, here of all places?

"Sasuke!"

"Don't do it!" the girl screamed again. "You're not _strong_ enough! Just run!" But something about the way she said it seemed slightly odd to him. A strange turn of phrase, and the emphasis she put on the word _strong._

"What the _fuck_ , Naruto?" the dark-haired shinobi said. "What, you want to let them win so easily? After all that talk of peace? You're more of an idiot than I thought, if you think everyone's just going to just fall over and accept it without a fight. Are you just going to give up as soon as someone threatens your friends?"

"But...Sakura," the blond said. "I won't give up on either of you! It _has_ to be me."

"Enough!" Hanzō warned. "You'd better hurry up, unless you want to die."

"It has to be none of us," the dark-haired shinobi said.

...This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Danzō turned to his ally, and frowned. "Hanzō—"

The earth they were standing on _crumbled_.

He found his footing in a few seconds — but in the precious time he'd spent recovering, the pink-haired girl had vanished from Hanzō's side, and the three Akatsuki were standing together, in a defensive position.

Foolish. They'd taken their eyes off the girl, and she'd proven to be not simply a damsel in distress. How...unfortunate. Still, it was futile. There were three of them, and they were grossly outnumber. He gestured to his men to begin the attack.

Beside him, Hanzō did the same. Ninja of ROOT and of Ame began their assault, throwing kunai and shuriken, or flinging jutsu. The three figures in the middle stood together, and the pink-haired girl stepped forward and punched directly downards.

The earth rumbled, and her friends guided the rock into a bulwark that shielded them from the assault.

Some kind of justu? No, it was pure strength.

Then, they launched into action. The blond summoned a number of clones, who shouted loudly and charged their enemies. They were real, solid constructs, and they worked together seamlessly, using a number of combination jutsu to cut, scorch, or bash the ROOT members. The dark-haired shinobi eschewed complicated tactics and threw out punishingly strong jutsu left and right, including a devastating attack that seemed to use the force of gravity itself to pulp enemies. The girl felled every opponent that came near with her punishing strikes, crushing skulls and shattering bone.

Three shinobi were taking on their combined forces, and _winning._

Until Hanzō stepped into the fray.

With an almighty roar, he summoned a great blast of flame that was larger by far than any technique used previously. The dark-haired shinobi stepped up to counter it with a jet of water, and the resulting steam cloud obscured them both from the range of vision. The other two opponents, however, continued unabated.

Danzō considered this an unmitigated disaster. And considering it looked as if Hanzō might no longer be the reigning power in Ame, it might be worth abandoning this venture. He could recoup the losses. Hanzō's support meant nothing if he was dethroned, and the Akatsuki could be dealt with by...other, cleaner means.

It seemed his investment in this venture should be reconsidered.

So, he stood back and watched. Either Hanzō would win, and he was still the shinobi that had held nations at by with only his two hands, or he wasn't, and he wasn't worth bothering with anyway.

He called back his ROOT, and watched as the battle reached its inevitable conclusion. The remaining Ame shinobi fell quickly, and the mist cleared, revealing the embattled combatants.

Hanzō had a deep gash in his side, and the other man's arms was bleeding.

"I cannot win here. Akatsuki, the day is yours," he acknowledged.

The other two went to celebrate, but the dark-haired shinobi collapsed, convulsing weakly.

The pink haired girl shouted, "Sasuke!" and went to him.

Hanzō stood still, staring at the other two. "Poison. There's no known cure."

"No," the blond shinobi refused.

"Yes," the leader of Ame rebutted. "This is war. To fight with anything less than your best is an insult. And you," he looked at the dark-haired man, "are an opponent that has earned my respect." His opponent met his gaze evenly, despite lacking the strength to stand.

"Sakura?" the leader of Akatsuki asked.

The pink-haired woman shook her head, silent tears pouring down her face.

"No!" the blond man cried. "Sasuke, why? Why did it have to be you? WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST KILL ME!?"

"Idiot," his dying friend chided. "You're the...best of us. How could I let you die? Besides, people who kill their friends, their family...those people are scum."

"But you're the child of prophecy! Yahiko-sensei said so!" The child of prophecy? And Yahiko, of the Sannin? How interesting.

"Being the child of prophecy...it takes more than a pair of eyes. Eyes...can always be transplanted...what you have, Naruto, is more than that."

"Sasuke..." the blond shinobi bowed his head, over his fallen friend. Then, he looked up, and frenzied blue eyes met both Hanzō and Danzō's own.

"If he dies, I'll never forgive either of you! I'll hunt you down to the ends of the earth! I'll burn the Leaf to the ground if I have to! I, Naruto of the Akatsuki, swear it! Run now, and never stop looking behind your shoulders until the day I come for you!"

Both veteran shinobi wisely fled the field, at that point, Hanzō to lick his wounds, and Danzō to consider his best assassins.

Nether of them heard the dark-haired man's last words, spoken into the endless rain of his homeland.

"Don't...forget...your dream...just for me."

* * *

 **Next up, Jiraiya.**


	7. Jiraiya

**Part 7**

* * *

A boy ran for his life.

He ran as if there was no tomorrow, as if the Nine-tailed fox itself was chasing him. Because if he didn't, he was as good as dead.

"JIRAIYA! YOU'RE A DEAD MAN!" his teammate shouted. Jiraiya ran. Because honestly, how was he supposed to know that Tsunade was in the bath at that exact moment? He'd just wanted a peek, honestly. It wasn't like he'd meant to peek on that side of the baths, and he'd certainly not meant to get caught.

He'd just gotten...curious about the other side, and he'd wanted to see, and he'd been stuck in the hot springs since Ebisu-sensei had left him to practice water-walking. It wasn't _really_ his fault, he had just looked for a second!

Because he'd certainly not meant to peek in the baths. That wasn't his intention. He'd been training, trying to learn water-walking, and that's where Ebisu-sensei had taken him. And then he'd ended up peeking over at the other side of the divider, because he was just so curious! Jiraiya was capable of resisting temptation, but it just wasn't fair that he'd practically been put in front of the wall. It was like taking an alcoholic to the bar — just asking for trouble.

And then his teammate had been there, which was the worst thing ever, because _of course_ she'd noticed. And now, he was running for his life. Because Tsunade would certainly end him if she caught him.

He couldn't even flee to the rooftops, because she was better at chakra control than him, and that, if nothing else, would spell disaster.

Jiraiya ran until he ran straight into someone. Quite literally, he ran straight into the man's chest and bounced off, rolling in the dusty street. Of course, Tsunade was still chasing him, so he couldn't exactly stay around to apologize, so he tried to scramble away.

He was stopped by two hands on his shirt, and lifted up and set on his feet.

Looking up, he caught himself staring into two bright blue eyes, like jewel sapphires.

Now, Jiraiya could say with authority, even at the precocious age of thirteen, that he was a man who loved women. He loved everything about them — their beauty, their wit, their smell, their legs, their...assets. He also loved their eyes.

So he was very certain he was staring into a pair of extraordinarily pretty eyes, which undoubtedly belonged to an even prettier woman.

He was hilariously mistaken, because he realized that he was being held by and staring into the eyes of a person who was undoubtedly a man. And not just any man, but the man who was arguably the most powerful shinobi in the village.

Namikaze Minato, the Yellow Flash of Konoha, and someone that the forces of Iwa and Kumo had been ordered to flee on sight from, had beautiful eyes. They were wide, blue, and positively sultry. It was an undeniable fact. The man had pretty eyes.

So perhaps it was somewhat forgiveable that the first thing he said to the man was, "Pretty eyes."

Beside him, Namikaze Minato's companion threw back his head and _laughed_. It wasn't a giggle, or even a chortle. It was full blown, full bodied laughter. Jiraiya twisted around a bit in the man's grip to get a good look at the laughing man, and his eyes widened in shocked recognition.

Because, he was looking at the Hokage. Yahiko of the Sannin, Yondaime Hokage of the Leaf, and the teacher of the Yellow Flash, was laughing his lungs out at Jiraiya.

His face reddened in embarassment.

The Hokage stopped laughing to gasp out, "Girly! Eyes!" which made Minato let Jiraiya go and rub the back of his head self-consciously.

He asked Jiraiya, "It's not that bad, right?"

Before he had a chance to respond, though, Tsunade came around the corner and saw Jiraiya. He gulped, and her face contorted with rage.

"JIRAIYA!" she said as she strode forward dangerously.

"Ahh!" he said — not squeaked, because Jiraiya did not squeak — and tried to hide behind the S-ranked ninja. It was dubious, but if anything could protect him from an enraged Tsunade, it was an S-ranked ninja. But even that wasn't a sure thing.

Luckily, the Hokage stepped in between them, and asked, "What's going on?"

Jiraiya began to try to explain his side of the situation, but Tsunade struck first. "He peeked on the woman's side of the public baths!"

 _Oh, shit_.

"I didn't _mean_ to!" he protested.

"THAT DOESN'T MATTER!" she shouted. "YOU STILL DID IT!"

"Now, let's just calm down," Minato said carefully. He carefully looked over them both. "You're Kakashi's students, aren't you?"

He nodded, slightly glumly. At least Tsunade had stopped shouting.

"Ahh, good. Now, first of all: clearly, Jiraiya, you should know that peeking in the women's baths is not okay. You know that, right?" He nodded again. "And you won't do it anymore, okay?" More nodding, this time particularly vehemently.

"And Tsunade? You have every right to be angry at Jiraiya for what he did. But no maiming your teammates, okay? One day you're going to have to rely on him, and he may maybe save your life, so you and he need to work to get along, okay?" Tsunade looked like she was going to argue for a minute, but she relented and nodded her head.

"Now, Jiraiya, you need to apologize."

He glared at Minato. He knew that! "Look, Tsunade. I'm sorry! I won't do it again! I was just trying to do water-walking like Ebisu-sensei told me to and I got frustrated! And then I got _curious_ and I really knew that I shouldn't but I did it anyway and I'm super sorry please forgive me!"

Tsunade stared at him with narrowed eyes. Minato looked at her imploringly. Tsunade remained defiant. Minato frowned, and glanced to Yahiko. The Hokage, who had been mostly silent during the exchange, only watching indulgently, cleared his throat.

Tsunade finally relented, and she growled out, "Fine. But if I catch you doing it again, you won't get off so easily."

"Excellent!" Minato said. "Now that that's over with, what are all of you working on? You're both in the finals for the chūnin exams, right?"

"Ahh, Ebisu-sensei said I need to work on the basics," Jiraiya admitted.

"And all I've done is the academy ninjutsu!" Tsunade complained. For once, they were in agreement.

"Ahh, but do you remember the message in the heaven and earth scrolls?" The Hokage reminded them.

"What!? There was some kind of deeper meaning?" Jiraiya asked.

"Of course! Don't be an idiot!"

"Ow! You don't have to hit me so hard!"

Minato just prompted his teammate. "Well, they talked about heaven and earth, and how you need both to be successful. So...it's sort of saying that you need to have no weaknesses, and you need to be okay at at least everything instead of good at just one thing?"

"Of course," The Hokage agreed. "After all, there aren't any jōnin that aren't good at the basics. Even your teacher, Ebisu, made special jōnin solely on being skilled at only the simplest techniques."

"So we just have to do the basics over and over?" Jiraiya asked.

"Oh, I don't know about that," the Hokage said. "I think we can spare an afternoon to help out our students' students."

Minato also grinned reassuringly at them. "Sure. Where is you sensei anyway?"

"He went off to help the bastard!" Jiraiya blurted.

"Ahh, but let's not call your teammate a bastard," Minato warned. "Remember, he's your teammate."

"But sensei totally ditched us to help out Orochimaru!"

The Hokage cleared his throat. "I believe that your teammate is fighting the Kazekage's son, right?" At their nods, he continued, "Perhaps he's worried about what Orochimaru's opponent did to your fellow genin, Rock Lee. Gaara does not seem like he is capable of restraint."

"But that's not fair!"

"Many things aren't fair," Minato said. "But that is the life of a shinobi. But consider that your teacher put in the effort to find another jōnin to teach you in his stead. And like Yahiko-sensei said, we can spare a little time for my student's students. What are you two interested in?"

Jiraiya was momentarily floored, but Tsunade wasted no time in shouting, "Medical techniques!"

"Ahh...I don't know much about medical techniques," Yahiko of the Sannin admitted. "Nagato is the one who knows almost every jutsu. Do either of you happen to have the water element?" he asked.

"Earth!" Tsunade said.

Jiraiya just shook his head. He didn't know his chakra nature, actually.

"Hmmm," Yahiko said. "Well, you hit your teammate pretty hard. I don't know about medical techniques, but I did have a student at one point who was a med-nin that knew how to enhance her punches with chakra. She could punch through the ground, or through trees. I could show you some pointers on that, if you like."

"I can do that!" Tsunade agreed. "Though I think there was someone in the exams that did something like that..."

"Huh? Well, maybe it's become a bit more common than I thought," Yahiko said.

Tsunade was too swept up her elation to notice, though.

Jiraiya did remember the strangely helpful pink-haired girl. But the Yellow Flash was looking at him imploringly, and Jiraiya didn't want to waste this chance. He had the opportunity to learn from a genuine S-ranked ninja!

There was something he really wanted, but he wasn't sure it was his place to ask.

"Ahhh, I'm not sure," he hedged.

"There's nothing you can think of?" the blond shinobi asked. "Surely there's at least _some_ kind of jutsu that you want to know."

"Well, I did hear from Kakashi-sensei that you taught him fūinjutsu."

"Mmmm! I did! I'm actually pretty good at sealing, y'know? But is that what you really want?" It was almost like Minato knew...

"But it's not my place to ask!" Jiraiya said quickly. "You can't just ask someone for a summoning contract! It's rude!"

"Oh, I don't know, it never hurts to ask," Minato cautioned. "And we're all shinobi of the Leaf, right? The worst that'll happen is I say no. But why do you want to learn to summon so badly?"

Jiraiya looked down at his feet. Tsunade was talking excitedly to the Hokage, as they were moving slightly away from him and Minato. He knew how he wanted to answer, but his dream...it sounded so stupid when he said it out loud. He was just an orphan kid with big dreams.

"Everyone...all ninja, we just spend all this time fighting and killing each other," he said, slowly growing more confident as he spoke, "I want to change that. I want to stop killing, to end this cycle of violence. But to do that, to do anything, I need to be strong first. That's why I want to summon."

Minato's eyes were wide as he stared at Jiraiya. But he wasn't laughing, or brushing him off as some naive kid.

"Jiraiya..." he said. "I think that's a _very_ good reason. But it's not only up to me. A summon contract is serious business, and the toads will have to accept you too. After all, the toads are sentient beings, too. And it's a big responsibility, so don't take it lightly."

"I can do that! But...why me? I know I'm your student's student, but I'm just some no-name orphan. I'm not the kind of genius my teammates are."

"Ahh, Jiraiya. Don't ever underestimate yourself, or let others look down on you because you're not from a clan, or an orphan. Look at the kind of no-name orphans that grew up to be famous ninja. That man over there," he pointed to the Hokage. "His teammate, too. And, don't forget that you're looking at someone who used to be a no-name orphan. Now, everyone in the Five Great Nations has heard of the Sannin, or the Yellow Flash.

"And besides," he said, leaning closer. "I've heard a lot about you guys from your sensei, and I know you're his favorite. So, I believe in you, Jiraiya, and I know you'll achieve your dream."

"There's no way I'm Kakashi-sensei's favorite! He spends a whole lot more time with Tsunade and Orochimaru!" Jiraiya said vehemently.

"My student is complicated," Minato hedged, his gaze far away, in the direction of their usual training ground and the memorial stone. "It's not really my place to say, but you remind him of someone who was very precious to him. Kakashi...he's lost a lot of people, and sometimes it's painful to see reminders of those people. You remind him...and I think for him, it's hard to look at you sometimes."

"I...see," he sort of didn't, though. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to him.

Minato was undeterred. "I'm not sure you do. But it's okay. You will, eventually.

"But that's enough of that! Let's get to summoning!" he said. "Now do you know the seals?"

"Of course!" Jiraiya couldn't contain his grin.


	8. Sakura

**Part 8**

* * *

A girl stood in a crowd, and pretended like she belonged there.

She didn't, of course. Her presence, spectacularly out-of-place, was twofold. First, and perhaps most importantly, she was here to look for the Kyūbi. No one knew where it was, and it was likely that the people that did know were the ones that would never tell.

And so, Sakura, a founder of the Akatsuki and their best sensor, was out to look for the person who held the beast. The last thing that they knew for sure was that it was held by Uzumaki Mito after the First Hokage's battle with Uchiha Madara at the Valley of the End. Beyond that, no one knew, and Mito herself had died years ago. It was possible that the beast had died with her, but unlikely. Konoha was many things, but they were not stupid, and not controlling a bijū would be foolish. So, it was likely that the Kyūbi had gone to someone else on Mito's death almost twenty years ago. It was the logical conclusion, after all.

So, the first place they looked was Mito's cousin, Uzumaki Nagato of the Sannin. But, no one knew where he was. He'd vanished from the public consciousness in a way that his teammates hadn't. Yahiko-sensei had gone on to become Hokage, and there were always whispers of a blue-haired woman that watched Konoha and its surroundings.

But of the third member of the Sannin, there had been nothing.

And this didn't necessarily mean he had the Kyūbi, because another Uzumaki had taken residence in Konoha. Uzumaki Kushina had come to Konoha shortly before the fall of Uzu, the ancestral home of the clan. And, the timing was spot-on if she had come to be the next jinchūriki.

And, as if by fate, she was slated to be the proctor for the third phase of the chūnin exams.

So, Sakura sat in a crowd and pretended to be a nervous genin like everyone around her. Her teammates were Rain ninja, unaware of her true identity. It wasn't like she spent a lot of time in her home village outside of the hospital, anyway. Pein was the sole ruler of Ame, and the people adored him for it. As they should. Her friend was a man who felt a fantastic amount of passion for a number of things, including the people of Ame. So they wouldn't see her as the elusive partner to the man they worshiped nearly as a god, instead she was a hopeful kunoichi who wanted to make chūnin in the Konoha exams. To this end, she had empowered her yin seal to maintain a permanent henge of a younger version of herself, with brown eyes instead of green, in case she did well enough for Yahiko-sensei to take note of her.

Instead, he would think it coincidence, and her success would ensure that Ame would have a reason to attend the finals, in case they needed to enact the second portion of their plan.

In case Uzumaki Kushina was not, in fact, the holder of the Nine-tails.

"Hey, listen up!" the red-haired woman shouted. "This is the third round of the Chūnin Selection Exams for the Leaf Village! All you need to do is to is win, kids! The match lasts until one of you gives up or dies. Those are the rules, dattebane! But if someone's clearly won, I'll step in, dattebane!"

At their nods, she continued, "First up is Jiraiya against Hyūga Neji!"

Sakura didn't pay the other genin much attention, but it was something of a surprise to see the Hyūga's face rubbed in his own arrogance. The Kazekage's son forfeited against the Aburame boy, and Sakura had to sigh. Could he be any more suspicious? Obviously he couldn't, which is why he was a genin, but she still would have appreciated some effort.

Then, it was her against the Senju. Which was admittedly not her ideal matchup, because her goal was to force the proctor to use chakra, but it would have to do. The Sand sure wasn't going to be all that helpful.

As she made her way down to the arena, she thought through a few plans. She didn't want to be too obvious with her distinctive taijutsu, because Yahiko would be watching, and he'd helped her develop the beginning of that style. It would be foolish to blow everything by punching through the ground in an ultimately meaningless fight. The Leaf might be suspicious from the puppet-boy's stunt, but the Hokage wouldn't act on mere suspicion.

So she would lead off with genjutsu, and then attempt to make a killing blow once the girl was already down. Or she could simply be faster, and attempt to poorly choke her out. There were a bunch of possibilities. In a way, fighting the Senju was a boon because Kushina would undoubtedly intervene if things got too dicey for one of the last few members of a founding clan.

Either way, she layered a mild genjutsu that made it seem like she was a few inches to the right of where she actually was as she entered the arena. Enough that it would confuse an opponent.

"Senju Tsunade of Konoha against Sachimi of Ame," the red-haired woman announced.

Tsunade just grinned, "You're going down, Rain loser."

Sakura just smirked a knowing smirk.

"Hajime!"

The blonde-ponytailed girl darted forward immediately, going on the offensive with a fast spinning kick. Sakura danced out of the way, curious at the outright aggression on display. That was honestly downright cocky, so clearly there was some reason she thought she had the advantage. Sakura bided her time, evading her hits with superior speed.

Truth be told, Tsunade's taijutsu was quite good for a genin, to the point where Sakura might have been hard-pressed to keep up with her at a similar level of ability.

So, she decided to hit back and end this fight pretty fast, by parrying one of Tsunade's punches and striking a disabling blow that would put her at a clear advantage.

Sakura went to block a roundhouse punch, already prepping her other hand for a knife-strike to the solar plexus.

Then, she promptly broke her arm on Tsunade's punch.

It snapped with a sort of sickening hissing sound.

Sakura immediately retreated and abandoned her earlier strike, grimacing in pain and holding her arm.

Tsunade didn't let up.

"How do you like that, slippery pink-haired bitch? You think all that hair dye makes up for having no chest?"

Sakura just sneered, and played keep-away while fixing her arm. The green of medical chakra was unmistakable, but still very much within the realm of a genin's capabilities. She would just wrap up her arm, and beat Tsunade like the upstart that she was with only her right.

Because, Sakura had recognized that technique. That technique was _hers_. Which meant that Yahiko must have taught it to her. Sakura couldn't help but scowl.

"What, are you finally going to take me seriously? I know you're holding back. If you don't stop, I'm going to break more than just your arm," Tsunade taunted.

Sakura could sell this. Playing at being enraged could be a viable reason for going too far. Of course, it didn't hurt that she was legitimately pissed that Yahiko-sensei had taught the other girl _her_ technique.

"Fine," she said. "You asked for it."

And then she _moved._

Tsunade had barely time to react before Sakura was flying at her, foot outstretched, in what seemed almost like a parody of Tsunade's opening move.

Sakura followed it up with an open hand sweep with her good arm, and made to follow up with an axe kick.

But the first hit connected with her cheek.

Tsunade was sent flying, and Sakura felt a thrill of satisfaction. She shouldn't be enjoying beating up a thirteen-year-old girl this much, but oh, how she was.

The blonde girl got up and spit out a tooth, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, before launching herself at Sakura again.

Sakura couldn't resist. She kicked Tsunade in the stomach, hard, sending her rolling to the ground again. She pounced, capitalizing on her advantage this time.

"And for your information..." Sakura kicked Tsunade again, hard. "My hair color is natural!" Sakura punched the other girl in the head, knocking her out. Which was good, but she had to sell this. "Just because you come from some clan..." Another kick in the side. "Doesn't mean I'm useless!"

And then she went to smash Tsunade's skull in, but she was stopped, by an iron grip on her arm. Due to the nature of her taijutsu, Sakura could probably have broken it, but she was playing a role.

She looked up into blue-violet eyes, that were flat with displeasure.

"That's enough," Kushina said. "You've won." And she was exuding killing intent, even just a bit, so Sakura was the only one who felt it.

However, it held none of the terrifying hatred of a bijū. Sakura extended her senses, opening herself to feeling the other woman's chakra, but she could sense none of it.

So it wasn't Kushina.

And as she stepped back, letting Kushina announce her victory, she looked up, to the Kage's box, and met the eyes of the shinobi sitting there, representing the country of Rain, wearing a heavy re-breather that covered most of his features.

She shook her head very slightly.

He paused and took a deep breath. She could practically see him close his lilac, ringed eyes behind the mask. Then he gave her the slightest of nods.

Konoha's jinchūriki would have to turn up in defense of their village, after all.

And if they settled an old score while they were at it, all the better.

* * *

So next up is Yahiko, which will coincide chronologically with this snip.

I also tried to do something sort of interesting with Sakura and Tsunade's fight - for Sakura, it's about a whole bunch of things, but she's in control, even when she's trying to seem like she's not. So I tried to make her thoughts reflect that - she stays analytical, and everything is pretty carefully planned.


	9. Yahiko

**Part 9**

* * *

A man sat and watched over his people.

Yahiko, the Fourth Hokage of Konoha, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, smiled to himself as he watched the Chūnin Exams. It was, truth be told, one of his favorite parts of the year. For one, it didn't involve paperwork. Despite Konan's fondness for the material, Yahiko had never quite shared that sentiment. Maybe because he was filling out forms while she got to use it as a weapon against enemy ninja.

Huh. Weaponized paperwork. What an idea.

But the other reason that he liked the Chūnin Exams so much was that he got to see all of the new up-and-coming talent. It was a real pleasure, because holy crap these kids were awesome, and they would definitely grow up to be way better ninja than the generations before them. Yahiko couldn't be happier with this turn of events. And this was a generation that had grown up more or less without war, which meant that in many ways they were still innocent. Of course, they were ninja, and therefore not innocents by their very natures, but the era of peace they were living through...it made a difference.

Yahiko wanted to preserve that, the best he could.

So, in its own way, that was why he loved the Chūnin Exams — it stood in the place of war, as a mock conflict so their genin didn't have to earn promotions in exchange for limbs, and promotion from the lowest rank universally went hand-in-hand with deadened eyes. This way was much better.

To him, it was the Will of Fire. Rather than some esoteric ideal about serving the village, the Will of Fire had always been embodied by the singular reason that united Uchiha Madara and Senju Hashirama to found Konoha: so that children didn't have to grow up on the battlefield. And the village embodied that, to Yahiko. It was a place where everyone understood what was important, and everyone worked together to preserve it.

To him, it was the most beautiful thing in the world, and it was showcased at these exams.

And, more personally, he had personally helped Senju Tsunade prepare for these exams, so he was eager to watch her compete. And it was...oddly coincidental that she was matched up against a pink-haired kunoichi from Ame that looked vaguely familiar. It obviously wasn't his former student, because she was dead, but pink hair was not all that common, and she did look vaguely familiar.

Maybe the girl was a relative. If he had time later, he might look into it. It had been years since he'd heard from any of his students, and all intelligence reports he'd gathered had pointed to their unfortunate demise.

Perhaps he was biased, but he honestly expected Tsunade to win. So it was a surprise when she didn't. Thus, he missed the quiet exchange between the pink-haired ninja and the man in the re-breather that stood in the Kage box with him and the Kazekage.

But the leader of the Sand did not.

"Your prodigy, Ame?" the Kazekage asked.

The man from Ame turned, and regarded the Kazekage with a derisive look. "Of a sort."

"Senju Tsunade is one of our most promising ninja," Yahiko said mildly.

"Is that so? Genius comes in all kinds, Hokage." Yahiko deliberately did not react to the mild barb.

The Kazekage chuckled at that. "How interesting. Speaking of genius...well, this should be interesting..."

Another pair of genin had stepped up to the field — Orochimaru, the young ex-ROOT prodigy from Tsunade's team, and a small red-haired boy from Suna that he recognized as Gaara, the Kazekage's youngest and the host of the Ichibi.

Who also happened to be well-known as a ruthless psychopath.

A trickle of sweat beaded on Yahiko's neck. Taking a deep breath, his eyes caught those of the woman proctoring the exams, and he gave Kushina a meaningful look.

 _Keep an eye on this match_ , he urged her mentally. He let his eyes travel over to the man who was her husband, and his apprentice, Namikaze Minato. Minato glanced up at him once, and then nodded.

Relaxing fractionally, Yahiko leaned back to stretch his back, slightly, and brushed some stray debris off his pristine white robe.

Down in the arena, Orochimaru seemed to be outpacing his opponent, using a combination of blinding speed and non-stop attacks to keep Gaara on the defensive. This strategy was somewhat hampered by the fact that Gaara was just as dangerous on the defensive as he was while attacking, and Orochimaru had to use every ounce of his somewhat prodigious speed to keep ahead of the sand.

Seeing that nothing was working, the Leaf genin switched to more powerful jutsu to penetrate Gaara's perfect defense. He threw fire ninjutsu, and when that didn't work, he tried tunneling under the ground with an earth jutsu.

Yahiko sighed, and his eyes widened fractionally.

That was also ineffective, so he blurred through a bunch of handseals, and at the end of the sequence, Orochimaru was left holding pure lightning chakra in his hand. _Chidori_. So Kakashi taught it to him after all. Yahiko instantly felt better about helping the boy's teammates at that. And three different types of elemental jutsu was impressive. Many jōnin hadn't quite mastered that yet. If nothing else, that alone was practically a guarantee of promotion.

Yahiko leaned forward and cut his finger, summoning a small toad. The other occupants of the box looked momentarily interested, but Yahiko merely whispered a few words into its ear, and it disappeared.

Orochimaru blurred forward, hand wreathed in lightning.

Where the previous attacks had been ineffective, the Chidori finally pierced Gaara's shield, opening up a bleeding wound in his shoulder.

The jinchūriki began howling and raving, eyes bulging. Part of his sand coalesced around him, beginning a bijū transformation.

At the same time, a storm of feathers fell from the arena. Yahiko reacted in an instant, flipping to the side of his chair, and throwing off his robe and hat.

The black rod blasted through his seat, skewering the space he'd just vacated.

A thin tendril of water coalesced into being next to his hand as he spun through the air, whirling toward the Kazekage, who deflected it with gold dust from seemingly nowhere.

"Raidō," Yahiko said calmly. "Please, assist in the defense elsewhere. The responsibility this fight lies with me."

"But—"

"Go. Both of these foes are beyond you." His bodyguard left, and he stared the two men down. "I have to admit," he continued, deceptively nonchalant. "I didn't see this coming. Rasa, you are not normally this rash—"

"Don't patronize me, Hokage. I would not be driven to this if your village did not see fit to steal from us! You court our daimyo, and yet you expect Suna to just accept this?" the Kazekage raged.

Yahiko picked up right where he left off. "And Hanzō does not normally concern himself with matters outside of Ame...but you don't work for Hanzō, do you, Naruto?"

The man in the re-breather didn't react outwardly, but answered in a quiet voice, "Hanzō has been dead for fifteen years."

"So, you now rule Ame. Congratulations. And yet you come here in disguise and conspire against my enemies. What happened to the boy I once knew?"

The Kazekage bristled at being ignored, and his gold dust began to swirl menacingly forwards, poised to strike.

Yahiko's left hand flung a kunai out, perfectly straight. The gold dust deflected it off course, and it spun around to lodge in the floor a few feet behind its target.

"What do you think happened, _Sensei_? What did you think would happen when you left three orphans to fend for themselves in war-torn Ame? I still want to bring peace to the world, but the world will never know true peace until it first knows pain that I have felt."

Rasa's face twisted with hate. The gold dust arced forward.

A blond man appeared out of thin air, one hand grasping the hilt of the fallen kunai, the other holding a swirling blue orb of chakra.

"Naruto..." Yahiko said. "Peace...you can't just force people to get along. It won't _work_."

Minato turned, thrusting the rasengan towards the Kazekage, who, midway through his attack, was forced to dodge awkwardly out of the way and somehow the jutsu still grazed his side, sending him tumbling to the floor of the kage box. The Yellow Flash moved to pursue, and the Kazekage was up and moving again with barely enough time to parry the followup kunai thrust.

But Yahiko couldn't take his eyes off Naruto, the boy who had once been so youthful, so vibrant, who had reminded Yahiko of himself, who had inspired Yahiko to write a story about an utterly gutsy shinobi that went on to become one of the biggest hits in the elemental nations.

"Don't you see, Yahiko-sensei? This world is _broken_. I will create a weapon so mighty and so terrible that no one will dare to start a war again. I have to show the world this pain, so that the world will become better for it."

The boy who stood before him and talked about wounding the world.

Yahiko raised his hand, and blades of water condensed around the other man.

"I can't let you do that, Naruto."

The water, refined into ultradense blades sharp beyond the capability of conventional tools, surged forward, intent on crushing Naruto.

He simply stood there, and the jutsu splashed against him, harmlessly.

But the jutsu had deprived him of his disguise, and Yahiko stood there, staring into a face he hadn't seen in twenty years.

Staring into a pair of rinnegan eyes.

"Sasuke's...eyes?" he gasped.

His former student gave his first real show of emotion. "I failed him, sensei. You were right. It took the death of my best friend for me to grow up. People don't change unless you _make them_."

Yahiko just gaped at him. "Naruto, that's not—"

"I'm sorry."

Naruto raised his hand, and the world _erupted_.


	10. Finale, Part I

**Part 10**

* * *

Nagato stared at the small toad. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, brat! Yahiko says you'd better hurry up, Konoha's in trouble!"

Nagato was silent for a minute. "It appears that I need to return and bail out my teammate. Heh. That's just like you, Yahiko, biting off more than you can chew."

The toad in his hand popped out of existence.

"Anko!" he called.

"Yes, sensei?" The purple-haired girl that had started this journey with him was now a woman in her mid-twenties. He was beyond proud of the ninja she'd become, and he had long since determined that she was smarter than him. Even if she had the tendency to dress...provocatively, it was either a front to annoy him or a way to keep people off guard. Probably both.

"We've got to head back to the Leaf."

"Ohhhh," she sounded almost disappointed. Huh. He would have at least thought that she'd be excited. Even after more than a decade together she could still surprise him.

"You don't sound too pleased."

"No, I'm happy to go back to Konoha. It's just, sensei, it's been so long, and you just drop everything when your old teammate calls?"

"It's time I returned anyway. The rumors of this Akatsuki have been dangerous enough," Nagato paused, considering. "And Konan would be way better because she's so close. If he's bothering to call me, it's because he _really_ needs help."

"Ahh, sensei, I see. So we should probably head out soon. It'll take us a few hours to make it all the way to the Leaf."

Nagato grinned. "Not quite. Take my hand."

Anko raised her eyebrows curiously, but took his hand anyway.

He closed his eyes, and a red cloak of immense, overpowering chakra oozed out of him to cover them both.

"The trip will be significantly shorter if we borrow the might of the Kyūbi."

Her eyes widened in shock, and he smirked, triumphantly.

The master had some surprises left, as well.

"Let's go!"

He surged forward.

* * *

Minato frowned, and dodged to the left. He was faster than the Kazekage, and the advantage of speed was keeping his opponent on the defensive. Unluckily, however, the Kazekage was _very_ good at defense — the strength of his Gold Dust rendered him nearly untouchable, even at his regular speeds.

Rasa was no idiot, either, and while he was perfectly willing to allow Minato to practically run circles around him, he was significantly less permissive when it came to hiraishin kunai.

It was a subtle dance — Minato was fast enough to outrun Rasa, who was skilled enough to deflect that prodigious speed.

Time to get serious, then. Speed wouldn't be enough, and he would have to use that technique.

But first, he was curious. "Kazekage! The Sand and the Leaf have been allies for years! Why did you attack the Hokage like that?"

The man's face twisted with anger. "The Sand is not what it once was! What recourse do I have when even our country's own daimyo is willing to take his business to Fire Country? What does that say about my people!?"

Two waves of dust attempted to squish him between them, so he teleported to a kunai behind his opponent, throwing another from his belt at the Kazekage's back.

"But attacking us isn't the way to fix that! Even if you do succeed in destroying the Leaf, that won't make the Sand strong!"

"No, it won't." The man's head was slightly turned, so he could watch Minato out of the corner of his eye.

Minato started slightly.

The Kazekage continued, "But it will prevent you from strangling us out of _kindness_. The Wind Daimyo wants to go to the Leaf for missions? What kind of message will it send to him when the Leaf is destroyed? He won't dare to hire a ninja outside of the Sand Village ever again!"

He punctuated this statement with a spear of dust flying forward towards Minato. He jumped left again, and in one hand he began gathering a ball of swirling chakra.

Minato prepped the rasengan. "That's not how the relationship between a Kage and his daimyo is supposed to work! It's a relationship built on trust!"

He jumped to another kunai, this time dashing forward and thrusting the justsu forward...into another cloud of dust, which resisted the spin with its weight. The attack petered out.

The Kazekage just sneered at him. Minato needed bigger guns.

"You are a sentimental fool." Well, Kushina said something similar about once a week. He couldn't really disagree.

Minato grinned. "Well, maybe you're right, Rasa. But you could have said that about Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara once upon a time. If we're going to change this world, it has to start somewhere. Why not with the man who is feared across the continent?"

His opponent frowned, as if waiting for Minato to strike again.

"I don't want to fight you," he admitted. "But when you come into my home, and attack my village, what is Konoha supposed to do? You yourself admitted your village was weak, surely you don't expect to win this."

The Kazekage shifted his eyes to the center of the arena, where a gigantic raccoon dog made of sand was rampaging. Minato could spot the red hair of his wife, summoning her family's chakra chains in an attempt to restrain it.

"The Sand's greatest weapon. My son. He is far too bloodthirsty to be controlled, but he can be pointed in the right direction," he said.

All Minato could think about was the dispassionate way the man was talking about his son. What kind of father was that careless with his child?

His eyes tracked Kushina, and his heart swelled with pride. She could take care of herself, even against a murderous jinchūriki. And she was particularly effective against that particularly enemy, anyway, because of her heritage, and Kakashi's genin team were keeping the Kazekage's other children and assorted Sand ninja away from Kushina. If the Kazekage was relying on his son to win the fight, this was poorly planned.

In fact, this whole thing seemed poorly planned. Minato didn't see any real advantage the Sand had. The strange Rain ninja that had confronted Yahiko and his sensei had moved away, but Yahiko could hold his own.

It almost seemed like all of this was some sort of stalling tactic.

The realization hit him like a lead weight in his stomach.

"You're stalling me," he said.

"Yes," his opponent admitted.

A wave of gold dust rushed him, and Minato dropped his kunai into the roof of the arena before hopping backwards, drawing the attack away from the Kazekage. Once the attack cleared, he flashed back to the kunai and jumped up.

Then he punched the Kazekage in the face.

"Who could you possibly be buying time for?" he asked.

"That would be me."

He turned towards the speaker, and felt his jaw drop.

Unruly A, the Yondaime Raikage, stood before him, practically vibrating with lightning-natured chakra.

The large man said, "Kumo has a bone to pick with you all, and I want a rematch, Yellow Flash."

Minato closed his mouth and felt his jaw tighten. "So be it."

He flashed forward.

* * *

"Stay down!" the redhead commanded, as enormous chains erupted from her back, wrapping around the giant sand monster.

Orochimaru wasn't sure when his promotion match turned into a full-scale assault on the village, but he'd gotten very used to rolling with the punches with his teammates around, and really, compared to his team's usual antics, the Chūnin Exams had been very calm so far.

So really, it shouldn't be a surprise, he considered. Jiraiya in particular seemed to have this weird propensity for property damage.

Maybe it was a bloodline talent.

Speaking of the walking ball of trouble, his teammates appeared next to him on the arena floor.

"What's going on?" Jiraiya asked.

"Idiot. We're under attack!" Tsunade berated.

"The exam proctor is attempting to defeat the beast. We should prevent anyone from interfering." The other two Sand genin in the finals, Gaara's teammates, had shown up too, and the blonde girl looked about ready to swing her fan.

"Got it. Hey! Puppet-coward! Come and fight me!" Jiraiya called. If nothing else, it was effective, because the puppet-user that had surrendered earlier immediately shouted and summoned his puppet to attack him.

"And you can leave the wind-girl to me, Orochimaru," Tsunade said. "It's not like I can afford to lose again if I want to get promoted, right?" She offered a hopeful smile.

"You cannot. It is unlikely that you will be promoted in the first place, considering you lost your first match," he replied. She narrowed her eyes in anger, but caught his small smirk.

"What! You're teasing me! Oh shit, Orochimaru is teasing me! Of all the times to develop a freaking sense of humor, honestly." And then she was gone, cracking her knuckles and dashing away.

Orochimaru was left without an immediate challenger, so he turned his attention to the Uzumaki, Kushina. She had wrapped a number of iron chains around the sand beast, who was laying on his back, struggling to break free. He thought it was rather curious that the sand monster couldn't just pass through the chains, seeing as he was made of sand. These were no ordinary chains, then.

As he watched, an enemy ninja in a Suna flak-jacket, snuck up to her, with a kunai in his hand. Orochimaru didn't panic, and instead let loose with a few kunai of his own. The other ninja spun and dodged most of them, deflecting one off his own kunai.

The Suna shinobi hurled his kunai in return, and Orochimaru had to move out of the way to avoid it.

His opponent then hurled shuriken, which he dodged again. A part of him wished that he had the reach to stop throwing things, but as he let loose with another kunai, he figured that was probably a project for another day. The Suna nin ducked, and brought his hands up in a complicated-looking gesture.

A puppet user? But Orochimaru didn't see —

Wires! The shuriken leapt from the ground towards his back, and he was forced to painfully contort himself to avoid them. Still, one scored him along the thigh. He cursed.

Looking up, he could see the man following up with a number of hand signs.

Orochimaru answered with some of his own. When the Suna nin released his jutsu, Orochimaru inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, and released his own only a heartbeat after.

A torrent of wind met a column of fire, and the fire surged through the blast of cutting wind. The man tried to jump away at the last minute, but the fire caught him and lit his entire side on fire.

Orochimaru grinned. Then he pounced forward with another kunai and cut the man's throat.

He went down in a gurgle of blood.

Orochimaru looked up from his fight — his teammates were still fighting, although it looked like Jiraiya might have the upper hand. The Ichibi was still tangling with Kushina, unable to really get free from her chains, but she was too occupied holding him still to put him down permanently. He moved to assist her, but his way was blocked by — a Cloud ninja?

What the? What was the Cloud doing here? The Leaf and the Cloud didn't have a great relationship, but they also hadn't even been at the exams. Still, Orochimaru drew his standard ROOT shortsword and dove into close-combat.

He led off with a short, low jab, but the man was _fast_.

Immediately, the Kumo ninja had a kunai out and Orochimaru was blocking his strike, struggling not to be driven back by the knife on his blade. Sparks flew, and they both disengaged. Orochimaru tried to go for a horizontal slash but the enemy danced out of the way and made to stab him.

He aborted his slash, and dove forward into a roll, coming up and around to block the next strike —

The man was standing, eyes wide at the gaping hole in his chest. Standing behind him, fist crackling with electricity and currently inserted in the Kumo shinobi's chest, was Kakashi-sensei. Orochimaru distantly noted the sound of birds chirping, which he hadn't heard before, was now fading.

"Maa, you alright?" he asked.

Orochimaru nodded.

Two more Kumo shinobi landed in front of them.

There was a brief staredown, until out of nowhere came a cry of "DYNAMIC EEENNNNTRRRYYYY!" and a green blur flew through the air and clocked one of the men in the face, sending him flying away.

"I will not let you defeat more opponents than me, Kakashi!" the green-clad man, Gai, proclaimed, and then he was away, capitalizing on his advantage.

The remaining Kumo shinobi regarded Kakashi lazily through the half-lidded eye that wasn't hidden by shaggy white hair. His sensei mirrored the man's casual slouch.

"You're the copy-nin," the man said.

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with you," Kakashi replied.

"Ahhh, that's okay. I'm Darui."

"Well, it's nice to meet you."

"Likewise. I'm sorry, but I think we're going to have to fight."

"It would seem so," Kakashi agreed amiably. Orochimaru could tell he was smiling under his mask. "Orochimaru, you should go see if you can help Kushina."

"Of course, sensei," he said. The other man drew his sword, a flat, cleaver-like blade, from his back.

Orochimaru turned and ran, to the sound of blades clashing.

Kushina was still struggling with the bijū, who had gotten himself turned over, arms, legs, and tail flailing wildly in an attempt to crush her. She simply danced out of the way and wrapped more chains around him.

Orochimaru jumped in next to her, and asked, "What do you need?"

"See the kid?" she shouted. "Take him out!"

"On it!" he replied. He could see Gaara, his opponent in the first match, embedded slightly in the head of the thing. He looked unconscious, head lolling lazily in time with the bijū's movements. Well, since obviously unconsciousness wasn't going to help, he was being asked to kill Gaara. That, he could handle. Danzō had often asked it of him, and he was far more suited than either of his teammates for such work. He would have to suffice.

He dashed forward.

* * *

Konan started, up from her desk as the door exploded open. A pink-haired woman wearing a black cloak with red clouds strode in, looking about.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

Konan calmly stood up, and asked, "Who?"

"Shimura Danzō. The man who runs his own private block-ops organization in Konoha."

"You are well-informed."

The pink-haired woman's eyes turned triumphant. "Akatsuki has spies everywhere." If nothing else, that was interesting. Konoha had been receiving rumors of a high-end mercenary group of missing-nin called the Akatsuki for years. No one could really pin them down, however, and information was sparse, and they made a point to evade the areas which she monitored.

Which meant that this encounter would be informative, if nothing else.

"What do you want with him?"

"If you tell me where he is, then I'll tell you why I'm looking for him," the woman offered.

Konan thought about that. It was sort of obvious, really, what the Akatsuki member wanted with Danzō. And it wasn't like she would get away with it.

The village's evacuation alarms sounded.

Konan cursed in her head. Time to speed this up, then.

"Danzō is dead," she admitted.

"What?" The woman looked shocked for half a second, before she recovered. "How?"

"Does it matter?" Konan asked. She wasn't going to explain the inner workings of Konoha politics to some outsider.

"Yes!" the woman shouted vehemently. "I wanted him to _suffer_! He helped — he _murdered_ Sasuke!"

Konan wasn't sure what to say to that, although she could sympathize. His ROOT was twisted and diseased, and had needed to be culled.

"You have my condolences," she said.

The woman nodded.

"But I can't let you leave here unchallenged," Konan declared. Even if her revenge was ultimately pointless, the fact that she was here for revenge remained.

"You are Shimura Danzō's successor, then?" the woman asked.

"After a fashion, yes."

The pink-haired woman grinned in response. "Then perhaps the trip here wasn't wasted after all."

She launched herself at Konan. Konan jumped to her left, out of the way of the other woman's fist, which shattered the stone wall behind Konan's desk.

Her form _rippled_ , and the sheets of paper flowed out of her center mass, joined by the paperwork on the desk, until a tornado of paper was swirling around the room. The Akatsuki woman glanced around for a second, before gathering up her chakra and unleashing a gout of fire from her mouth.

Konan quietly reformed behind her, avoiding the fire in the tight space. When saturated with her chakra, her paper was resistant to all types of elemental jutsu, but there were enough advantages to dodging a blow that she often did anyway. It was helpful to gain the element of surprise, and even more so to perpetuate the illusion that she was vulnerable to fire release. Although it was the element that was most effective against her paper, it still wasn't particularly dangerous to her. A technique that turned oneself into paper would be a lot less useful if it also came with a crippling weakness to fire when a significant number of shinobi were capable of performing fire techniques.

In return, she gathered her chakra and threw a storm of paper shuriken at the woman, who turned and dove out of the way, dodging most of the attack. Only a few shuriken connected, and the pink-haired woman grimaced and held her hands together in a seal.

The projectiles pushed themselves out of her, and her wounds closed. A medical-ninja, then. Konan had to dodge again as the woman launched herself into more devastating taijutsu attacks. Holding herself together loosely formed out of paper allowed her to obviate the damage, but as she ducked away from an axe kick the shattered her desk, Konan realized that this woman was dangerous enough that she would be unable to defeat her in close-quarters. She needed to move to a different location, because the confined space of her office heavily favored her more close-combat focused opponent.

Time to move, then.

Konan let herself flow into a paper state, flowed around another fire jutsu, and reformed in the hallway. The woman busted through the doorway after her, and shouted, "Don't you run away from me!"

Konan grinned, and sent another cloud of paper weapons behind her. Abandoning the use of legs altogether, she formed a pair of paper wings on her back and took off down the tunnel. Her pink-haired opponent was hot in pursuit, but Konan was faster. She turned a corner, and let herself slow a bit. She didn't want to lose an S-ranked ninja completely when the village was under attack. The other woman appeared a second later, kunai flying from her fingertips. Konan didn't bother dodging the projectile, and instead let her speed do the talking.

Konan proceeded to lead her on a merry chase, through the tunnels of the underground complex once used by ROOT.

She only stopped once they reached an old underground training area, dusty and filled with cobwebs. Where the man once known as the Darkness of the Shinobi once conducted his operations, there was nothing now. Instead, Konan kept the base for her semi-sanctioned activities in the tunnels that were left over. Yahiko knew what she was doing, but that was it — otherwise, she worked alone. She preferred it that way.

Arriving in the large chamber, Konan flitted away to hover near the ceiling, away from the door.

The Akatsuki woman entered the chamber, and glared up at Konan, a few cuts closing on her skin. "So, you done running yet?"

"I am."

"Aren't you going to summon your little minions?"

Konan raised an eyebrow. "I don't have minions. The organization known as ROOT is no more, as it died with its leader, Shimura Danzō."

The woman's eyes widened. "Damnit!" she shouted. "I don't care about some Konoha shinobi, even if you are one of the Sannin. I came to kill a certain man, not to fight someone to prove my strength." She dropped her hands.

"But you were so willing to fight me before. What is different, now?"

"I thought you were just like him! A coward, who hid behind his men and ordered the death of my friend for no reason other than his own personal gain! We posed no threat to him, or to Konoha! All we wanted was peace! But here you are, fighting me yourself to defend your village. I don't _want_ to kill someone like that."

Konan understood. "So your purpose here was impossible. Again, I apologize for denying you your vengeance. I do question, however, what it is that you will do now."

The woman bowed her head. "Even if my personal goal here is impossible, the Akatsuki will not fail."

"No? So Akatsuki is not here to kill Shimura Danzō. Interesting. You know, of course, that I cannot let you achieve whatever it is that your organization seeks to accomplish here."

"Of course not. But you're mistaken if you think you can stop us." An explosion shook the room they were in. "Our plans have already begun."

Konan spread her hands out, and her paper streamed out into two large disks, held out to either side.

"So be it."

The woman grinned, sharp and predatory. Konan started the fight by launching one of her chakrams spinning through the air at her opponent. She just dodged. Konan followed up with a storm of flying paper projectiles, flying at her opponent from all directions. Her opponent used an earth jutsu to block half of them, and her hands to deflect the other half. Konan's other chakram smashed through the rock wall, but the other woman was already jumping away.

The pink-haired woman ducked under another chakram, and flung herself at Konan, almost too fast to avoid. Konan was forced to dissolve into paper, and this time two blue-haired women with Konoha headbands appeared on each side of the room. The storm of paper continued — to the point where it consisted of significantly more paper than constituted the volume of a human body. The woman was almost a blur as she evaded the cloud of shuriken flying around like locusts pillaging a crop. They didn't strike hard or deep, but enough stings could bring down even the mightiest of opponents.

A chakram careened towards her, and she planted her feet. A bladelike wheel of paper met a chakra-reinforced fist, and the projectile broke on the woman's defense and flitted away, reforming again.

Dropping back, the Akatsuki member performed a number of handseals. One of the Konans just raised her hands and two more chakrams formed, joining the remaining original in flying towards the woman.

A cloud of fireballs erupted from the woman's mouth, consuming most of the projectiles that flew towards her. Each chakram met a fireball, and plowed through, but not without igniting. Although she was beset by still more paper, she darted forward and spat a water bullet at one of the paper women. It took the blow and disintegrated into a swarm of paper.

Konan used this moment to dart forward on wings of paper, a paper sword thrusting underneath the other woman's guard. The enemy kunoichi's green eyes widened in amazement, so close to Konan's own amber ones, until she smirked...and was replaced by a loose stone in a puff of smoke.

The Akatsuki then came out of nowhere with a metal pole — Konan deflected it with a strike of her own, and the other woman feinted low, and then punched her in the gut. Konan took this blow, feeling her ribs bruising almost instantly, and danced away a bit before leaping in with a kick. The woman was caught off guard enough to barely dodge, but struck back just as fast. The previous duel turned into a brutal taijutsu bout that lasted for barely a minute before the pink-haired demon landed a punch across Konan's cheek that sent her flying across the small space.

Konan caught the small smile on the other woman's face as she bounced to a stop on the ground. She flipped up, and held out her hand.

The paper chakram sheared into the Akatsuki woman's side almost to her spine.

"Ahhhh, _fuck_!" she shouted, hands going to her wound, even as another chakram wheeled towards her. She spat another water bolt to break it up, and Konan used that brief lull to catch her breath. She hadn't been challenged like this in a long time, and despite feeling it in both bruises and her depleting chakra reserves, she was almost exhilarated.

"Your jutsu is impressive."

The other woman flashed a smile. "Thanks. I always looked up to you, you know. Konan of the Sannin, the woman who turned a useless kunoichi skill into an art form."

She nodded her head in assent. "I would know your name, if only to honor you if you fall today."

"I'm called Sakura."

"Hmph. Fitting."

Sakura beamed. "Of course. People always underestimate me, because of the hair and the name and the fact that I'm a medic."

"Then they are foolish indeed. I have fought very few of your quality. Prepare yourself, Sakura of the Akatsuki."

Konan then flew through a few handseals, which produced a gust of wind that _erupted_ through the chamber, throwing the woman off her feet.

She flew towards the other side of the room, where three paper chakrams were already arcing towards her. The first was deflected with a chakra-sheathed fist, but the second pierced deep into Sakura's thigh. She just grimaced, and dispersed it, hands already glowing green.

But Konan was already flying towards her, on a storm of paper. Instead of striking, she merely flashed into Sakura's face and grabbed her wrists, letting the paper surrounding her envelop the other woman's body completely.

She struggled, undoubtedly, but Konan held firm, and reinforced her grip with paper shackles. After a minute or two, she was cocooned thoroughly in the paper, with only her mouth visible. Konan made sure to press down on the wound, to ensure that she didn't bleed out.

"Why would the Akatsuki attack here? What are you after?" she asked.

Sakura just grinned, and said, "You are in charge of intelligence in Konoha, are you not? The Kyūbi has been hidden for decades, so we had to draw him out."

"So you just rampaged through our village until a jinchūriki showed themselves?"

"Of course. Suna and Kumo were happy to assist, naturally. It seems like grudges against Konoha are easy to come by. I came here because I had a score to settle, but I wasn't the only one."

Konan impassively let a piece of paper cut off the other woman's air supply, suffocating her into unconsciousness, but inside she was cursing. Konoha had known that Suna might try and pull something, so they were by no means unprepared, but the Akatsuki and Kumo's involvement complicated things greatly. And if people held old grudges, they would almost certainly start at the top.

Which meant Yahiko.

She extended her senses to the vast network of paper trinkets that she kept around the Village Hidden in the Leaves. She'd had to draw heavily on her reserves of paper for this fight, and the network was sparse compared how it usually operated, but it was more than enough to feel the power of a bijū in the arena, and numerous other battles waging around. Concentrating, she felt around for her old teammate, and the one man she trusted above anyone else. There!

He stood alone, his chakra cool and smooth like always, fighting an opponent that shone like a miniature sun.

The roar of a jutsu brushed against her senses, and Yahiko was flying like a rag doll.

Konan didn't bother thinking twice — she _flew_ forward.


End file.
